VIDEO. In immersion with the sewer workers of Paris

Brut accompanied the emergency response unit of the Paris sewers. In this unit, there are 36 agents who work 7 days a week and 24 hours a day and answer on phone calls. “It’s a bit like the sanitation firefighters“, smiles a sewer.

“The agents who intervene in the sewer network, it is 6:40 am because the exposure of workers in these environments, if we exceed it, we put ourselves in danger and we expose ourselves to various problems.“, explains Nicolas Joseph, sewer worker. Other risks: the risk of intoxication. To avoid them, the sewer workers wear a detector which constantly analyzes the atmosphere of the sewer: the level of oxygen, H2S, a gas resulting from the decomposition of organic matter.

For the sewer workers, their work is above all a choice. “We have this awareness of public service and collective interest, of really working for the Parisian user. And it’s for action too. The action, we can see; we intervene in the early morning, we intervene at night“, explains Nicolas. Also, by doing this job, the sewer workers understood how similar the sewer system was to a natural system that must be preserved as much as possible:”We have the source, the flush, it will fall into a small stream which will fall into a river, this river will go into a river and the river into the sea. “